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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 444936" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chinese Take-outChapter 19, "He's got to be around here somewhere!" September 17, 1018, 11:00 A.M.  While the group of Duegar, Hiroshi, Lannon, Mojo, Narg and Serita are away at the Chinese city of Chunming, the group of Aradyn, Cassie, Fiona, Lono, Mark and Toshiro decide to go and confront Rainville.  They get directions to the park of foreign churches to the east, and set out on a trio of rickshaws.   Cassie and Aradyn take one, for what turns out to a be a four-mile ride of silence and high tension.   Fiona and Toshiro take another, and discuss the predicament that Timothy has gotten them into.  Toshiro asks “Is this the first time he has gotten your group in trouble?  “The first time not also involving gnomes,” is Fiona’s answer. [There has been a running joke that the Lawful Good cleric has a thing for male gnomes.  This is actually not true, but got started once when a drunken gnome member of the party staggered in late one night on a campaign, and got into the wrong bed.].  Mark and Lono are in the third rickshaw.   The well-traveled road takes over an hour due to the hilly terrain near their destination.   During this trek they see over a hundred rickshaws and carts going to and from the same destination.    They arrive at the park, which like the park area they first teleported into the Shosun region at two days earlier, has twelve churches situated around a pond.   Unlike the other park area, rather than being in a grassy plane this is set on top of a large, flat hill.    Of the twelve churches, four are of Pantheons of other Oriental cultures, the this world equivalent of Indonesia, Japan (Heian), Korea and Vietnam.   The other eight are the this world equivalent of Babylonian, Celtic, Egyptian, Finnish, Greek, Indian, Norse, and Sumerian.    Alongside the pond is a parking lot, where hundreds of rickshaws and carts are parked.   Their rickshaws soon park (after first circling around the lot to find the best spaces).    Lono states “With all of these different churches you’d think that there would be at least one dedicated to Lovers of Chocolate.”The party gets off of the carts.   Fiona asks Cassie “Where did you say your boyfriend’s brother is hiding out?”  This comment earns her a dirty look from Aradyn.   Cassie answers, “All he said was the church of his group’s cleric.  Does anybody remember what religion their cleric was?”  It is recalled that of the six members of the Hendry family, none of them were clerics, as their team’s cleric had been Hendry Senior’s wife, who had died the previous year.   A heated discussion follows, with more criticism of Cassie having not been thorough in her discussion with Rainville earlier.  The party decides to start checking out the churches.   Toshiro decides to spend this time at the Heian Empire church, feeling the need to meditate about his current situation, and the recent revelations from his Uncle, and heads off on his own.  He also uses this time to read the thin book that he had purchased earlier that morning for the sum of six gold pieces.   The book is written in the language of the Heian Empire, and the author is listed as the “Transformationalist Li-Tak.” Toshiro recognizes that the handwriting of the book exactly matches that of the two texts that the party found which had writings by Lee Takayama.    This book contains information about the Hengeyokai race and its twelve animal sub-races.  The book clearly indicates that this new race was “created” by Li-Tak, although it does not explain how.  The book’s conclusion states that the twelve sub-races were only the first ones created, and that the author plans to also develop other sub-races.  The date listed on the book indicates that it was originally written 403 years ago, which was 51 years after Lee Takayama left the Heian Empire (when he would have then been approximately 190 years of age). Meanwhile, the others conclude that whatever cleric the Hendry family has allied with would probably be someone who escaped from one of the other teams that attacked the island, which eliminates all four oriental churches.   They also notice that the vast majority of the people visiting these twelve churches are frequenting the four oriental churches, so these would be a bit too crowded for a conspicuous Caucasian to hide out in.  They start by checking out the pantheons they are most familiar with Greek, Finnish, Celtic and Norse, but come up empty at all four.   Fiona goes to check on Toshiro, asking him to look around the Heian church for Rainville and to come and get them if he is found.  Toshiro does so, finding nobody, so goes back to reading and meditating. They have Cassie re-think everything that she had been told earlier, with her recounting that Rainville said their cleric had been given permission to stay here by the church’s groundskeeper.  With that new tidbit of information, they find a Chinese official from Shosun who has administrative duties for the park, to inquire as to groundskeepers at the other four non-oriental churches   They find that neither the Indian or Sumerian employ anyone to take care of the landscape, that being part of the duties of the clergy.   They are told that the Egyptian church, the smallest of the twelve churches in the area, only employs a part-time groundskeeper, who is currently not at the park. They are told that the Babylonian church and the Korean church both have full-time groundskeepers.   They start with the Babylonian church, finding the man to be rather cooperative.  The man denies knowing anything of the person they are looking for.   The party concludes the man is being truthful, however Lono still wants to “rough him up a bit, just to make sure.”  Pulling Lono away, they head to the Korean church, and are given directions to the groundskeeper’s home by a High Priest.  They go to a small one-room building behind the church.  The man refuses to open the door or talk to them.    The rest of the party guards the building, as Fiona goes and gets the High Priest.  She explains to the Priest that they are looking for a wanted criminal responsible for eleven deaths within the city, and that the groundskeeper is being uncooperative.    The High Priest returns with her, and demands that he be let in.   The groundskeeper opens the door only a crack, stating that he has does not know what the party is talking about, and wants to be left aloneAradyn looses his patience (a rarity, but then again, he has been emotionally on-edge this day) and kicks in the door.   They discover that the man is not harboring any fugitives, but that he has been stealing from the church, the room being filled with the stolen goods.   The groundskeeper tries to run away, but is stopped by a Hold Person spell thrown by the High Priest.  The High Priest thanks the party for bringing this matter to his attention.  They head to the Egyptian church, finding it to be a large wooden building with a marble floor.  Statues of various Egyptian deities are throughout the room.  Noticing that many of these deities have faces of animals, Fiona ponders if there is perhaps some connection to the animal-creatures.  Fiona recalls that a neutral-aligned cleric named Barry had been part of Morgarth's forces, and that he had negotiated his freedom from the party the previous month.  Barry had the Egyptian pantheon for his deities.   They find nothing in the room, but also notice that the room only occupies about eighty percent of the building, although there are no visible doorways into the other twenty- percent.   No secret doors are found, so they head outside and around back, finding a locked exterior door to the other section of the building.  Lono picks the lock, and the group enters.    This section of the building has two rooms in it, the first being a storeroom of gardening supplies.   The door to the other room is locked, which Lono again unlocks.    They enter what is a small bedroom.    They do not see anyone in the room, which is quickly shut behind them, with Mark guarding it.Aradyn spots very fresh tracks on the floor.   The bed looks to have been slept in, and is checked, finding it to still be warm.   “OK, we know you’re here Rainville.  You might as well come out,” Aradyn says.   “Or else,” Lono adds.   Cassie interjects “Please.  We aren’t planning to hurt you, we just have some questions.”  “Who says we aren’t planning to hurt him?” Lono asks.  “Apparently she does,” Fiona answers.  “Who elected her party leader?” Lono inquires, then saying, “Look, if you don’t speak up we’ll have to start trashing the place until we find you.”  “This is a holy place,” Aradyn says to him.  “Hey, it’s not my church,” Lono answers.  “He might try to stop you Lono,” Mark interjects.  “Great, that would be an offensive act, which would make him visible,” Lono answers.   Fiona asks, “I don’t know.  Would you really consider hurting or killing Lono to be an offensive act?”   She then adds, “Why don’t I just cast a Detect Magic.”   A voice, coming from a wooden chair, finally speaks up, stating, “I’m here.”   “Show yourself,” Aradyn demands.  “I’d rather not,” he answers, “I need this invisibility spell to help protect me.”  Cassie says, “Let him stay invisible.”  “I like to see who I’m killing,” Lono states.  “We’re not going to hurt him,” Cassie interjects.  “Says you!  Why shouldn’t we kill him,” Lono yells, “That would at least get Timothy off the hook.”Cassie says “Rainville.  Here’s the situation.  Our lawful-good cleric is being held by the city because he said he knew of your family.  My friends are inclined to turn you into the authorities, and think that you may still be working with Morgarth.   Could you please explain to them what you told me earlier?”  Aradyn angrily states “Yeah, like how you guys went from escaping from us to becoming cop killers.”   “It’s a long story,” he replies.   Aradyn answers “Well, for your sake right now, you’d better tell us the whole story about what you and his family have been doing during the past five weeks since leaving our Island, and not just the abbreviated version that you previously told Cassie and Hiroshi earlier.  And don’t leave out any important facts.” Rainville begins his story.</blockquote>

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